Elevating the Art of Telling a Customer "No"

In a service and hospitality industry, we are taught to always say "yes".  And indeed, most of us are people-pleasers. It's in our blood.  However, there are times when we have to say no.  In one of our prior posts, we talked about the two things that should happen when you have to tell a customer no.   Recently, I had the opportunity to share with a small group of hospitality professionals how elevating it to the point where the customer feels that they have actually not been told "no" and is brought on board as part of the process  - and has a choice -  is a delicate but powerful art.  The ability to perfect this "super power"  will build you customers for life as well as make sure that you are protecting yourself and making room for the work that really matters.


Consider the following story with our event planning division for a "month-of", reception-coordination-only client where she was responsible for planning her own reception and we stepped in "month of" to tie it all together:  she was young, inexperienced, and, to put it mildly, quite spoiled and demanding.   Despite her services not even starting until one month prior to her wedding and ample notice given to her about a vacation we were taking where we closed down for the month of December  six months before her wedding, she had her own planning crises and called us during our vacation - for situations which had nothing to do with us or our services.  Her messages said, "I know you are on vacation, but I need to hear back from you now."

While 99.9% of our clients are not like this, and we are firm believers in not enabling bad behavior and teaching people how to treat you and, like many professionals, consistently go above and beyond any contract for our clients, this particular client needed to be managed in a big way.  So, after taking time to speak with her (on our vacation) , as well as countless other acts of going outside the scope of our contract, when she approached us to demand a second in-person walk-through just to FaceTime her from the wedding reception location (which is over 2 hours away)  in addition to her contractually -scheduled appointment (after she had just visited and finalized all her layout), I knew it was time to set up some boundaries.  My knee-jerk reaction in my head was "Absolutely not. I am not doing a second appointment at no charge."   But what I ended up implementing was a tried-and-true secret I've put into practice that serves me well.  It is another way of saying no.  When used, the client is calmed, they feel they are still in charge, but ultimately I have the last say, and the integrity of the working relationship is preserved.

I acknowledged the bride's currently-scheduled onsite appointment with me and said how much we were looking forward to it (the element of grace and enthusiasm extended to a client cannot ever be underestimated).   I reminded her that her current Performance Agreement allowed for one , single in-person session prior to her wedding day and that adding a second appointment would be an extra fee to cover our time and mileage.  I explained that I did not feel she truly needed this second Facetime appointment on location, but if it gave her greater peace of mind, I was happy to accommodate her and add this to her final invoice.  I acknowledged that only she knew her spending plan and comfort zone and laid out her choices (there were three).  

Choice A:  Keep within her budget:  Keep her currently-scheduled appointment with me and have the Venue Manager do the superfluous Facetime walkthrough with her  |  Choice B:  Keep within her budget:  switch her already-scheduled walk-through with me to the Facetime walk-through as her newly -scheduled one-hour session  |  Choice C:  Upgrade with an additional fee for my services:  Keep both walk-throughs and have me invoice her for the extra amount (I gave her a quote based on my contract's quote for overtime, extra services, travel fees and mileage).  

I then gave her my professional recommendation, which was that she did not need two walkthroughs (one Facetime, one , in person) after she just visited and did a walk-through, finalizing her lay-out.  I suggested she just choose one.  In the end, she went with exactly what I suggested and was happy feeling she had been the one to make the choice that I knew was the right one from the beginning.  And had she chosen on insisting on that second walk-through, I had every right to charge accordingly and she would be making an informed decision by which we all won.

 In summary:

1) Acknowledge the client's request

2) Educate them about their choices while guiding them towards your desired end result. You are the professional.  You are worthy of your hire and time.  You have the right to say no so you can make room for the most important things to you.
 
3) Based on these choices, provide them with your professional recommendation for them to consider (which stipulates your ultimate goal of what you would like to get out of it and why it will benefit them, the client)
and finally: 

4)  Ask them which (choice) they would like to make.  The ball is in their court.
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